“I’d love to go,” he said. “You can shop, and I’ll keep Lily away from breakable objects, sharp knives, and loaded guns.”
Lily, of course, is thrilled. She jumps up and down when Zack shows up bright and early, with a Starbucks tea for me in one hand and a cooled-down hot chocolate for her in the other.
“Thanks,” I tell him, opening the door and taking the tea. I tamp down my own delight at seeing him.He’s married, and he’s moving, I remind myself as I try not to notice how nice he looks in jeans and a black T-shirt.
Lily bounces around and shows Zack her latest artwork while I gather up my tape measure, a stack of sticky notes with the wordSoldwritten on them, a packet of crackers for dealing with sudden-onset morning sickness, snacks for Lily, and water bottles. I also stuff a small magnetic puzzle and a travel doodler in my bag to keep her occupied.
We pile into my car and head out. Lily jabbers about her preschool class during the short drive, then quizzically scrunches up her face when I pull into a residential area. “Where’s the store?” she asks. “These are all houses.”
“Estate sales are held when someone wants to sell their furniture and belongings,” I tell her. “A lot of the merchandise in my shop comes from sales like this.”
“The stuff in your store used to be in people’s houses?”
“A lot of it. You can find all kinds of cool things at estate sales. I like to think of them as treasure hunts.”
“Ooh, I love huntin’ treasure!” Lily says. “What kinda treasure?”
“You don’t really know until you get there and look around. Today I’m mainly looking for furniture that my clients will like.”
“Furniture’s not treasure,” Lily says.
“It can be,” I tell her. “Treasure is anything that someone thinks is beautiful and precious.”
Zack turns around and smiles at her. “Do you know my favorite treasure?”
In the rearview mirror, I see Lily shake her head.
“You!” he says.
She giggles. “You’re silly! I’ll show you what treasure looks like. Can I have the travel doodler?”
“It’s the thing in my bag that looks like an Etch A Sketch with a magnetic pen,” I tell him. He digs it out and passes it to Lily, and she settles down to draw.
Zack looks over at me. “How do you know which one of these to go to? There must be dozens every month.”
“I’m on the contact list of the major companies that run them,” I explain. “They send me emails and photos of some of the items going up for sale. This one looks really promising.”
“Do they let you call dibs on things?”
I shake my head. “Everything’s on a first-come, first-served basis. That’s why we have to get there early.”
The next few moments pass with Lily showing Zack a picture she’s drawn of treasure chests and pirates. I slow as I get close to our destination and search for a parking place. I find one a block away. I kill the engine, grab my tote bag, and open the door. Zack gets out, too, and unbuckles Lily from the back seat. She bounds down, holding Sugar Bear by a paw.
People are milling around the front lawn of the large two-story galleried home on Perrier Street as we walk up. I recognize the owner of the antique store on Royal Street, the buyer for an eclectic lighting store in midtown, and a woman who runs a vintage clothing store in the French Quarter.
“I need to go get a number from the man on the porch and say hello to a few people,” I say.
“We’ll wait for you back here,” Zack says.
I return ten minutes later to find Zack playing “Which hand has the penny?” with Lily. I can’t help but smile at Lily’s exuberant delight. Something warm and tender starts flowing through me. I try to shut it off, but Zack grins at me as I approach. My emotional faucet seems to be broken where he’s concerned, I think with chagrin.
“All set?” he asks.
I nod. “We’re number thirteen, which is really lucky. They’re only allowing fifteen people in at a time, and I wanted to be in the first group.”
“Wow, this is serious business.”
“I’ll say,” chimes in an older man waiting behind us. He’s wearing a newsboy cap and a Hawaiian shirt, and he’s standing with a gray-haired woman in a floral dress. “My wife got me up at the crack of dawn.”
